Daniel Hummel, director of the Lumen Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Upper House, takes us through the 200+ years of Christian-led efforts to create a Jewish nation-state.
Episode 1
Explores the pre-WWII roots of the movement, Evangelical Christians’ relations with Muslims of the region in the early days of the State of Israel, the theological basis of Christian Zionism, figures like Douglas Young and Billy Graham, the concept of Judeo-Christianity, the effect of the 1967 War on the relationship, and more until the Nixon Administration.
Episode 2
Picks up with the rise of the new Christian right in the 1970s and the role of Zionism therein, dispensationalism and its notion of Jews and Israel, the Israeli right’s concurrent rise to power, Jimmy Carter as a non-Zionist evangelical, the Camp David Accords, Ronald Reagan’s relationship with Christian Zionism, and where the movement stood on the eve of the Oslo Accords.
Episode 3
Picks up in the 1990s with the Oslo Accords, the push for a “Great Israel”, the Left Behind books and the rise of apocalypticism, Christians United for Israel, and more until the Obama Administration.
Episode 4
Picks up at the beginning of the Obama Administration, touching on Netanyahu’s deepening ties with American Christian Zionists, the Evangelical “case” against Obama, that community’s reaction to developments like the Arab Spring and the advent of the so-called Islamic State, Trump’s dynamic with Christian Zionists and Israel, and more.